To mark the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Árpád Göncz, Magyar Posta is issuing a commemorative stamp. The Attila József Prize-winning writer and literary translator was the first president of the 3rd Hungarian Republic between 1990 and 2000. Fifty thousand copies of the commemorative stamp designed by the graphic artist Imre Benedek were produced by ANY Security Printing Company. The new issue is available from Filaposta, philately specialist services, certain post offices and www.posta.hu.
Árpád Göncz (1922-2015) took part in the armed resistance against the Arrow Cross during the Second World War. After 1945, he was active in the IndependentSmallholders’, Agrarian Workers’ and Civic Party and, when it was banned, he didphysical work to support his family. After the 1956 revolution, he was sentenced tolife imprisonment in the Bibó trial, but was released on amnesty in 1963. This waswhen his career as a literary translator and later as an author began to develop. From the outset, he was involved in the activities of the democratic opposition. In 1990, as a politician of the Alliance of Free Democrats, he became a member of the first freely elected Parliament after the change of regime, and then its first speaker. In this capacity, he was elected interim President of the Republic, and on 3 August of the same year he was elected President of the Republic. He served two terms in office.
As a writer, he is the author of novels, essays, short stories and plays that have a distinctive individual voice. His impressive oeuvre of hundreds of volumes includes translations of the best of classical and contemporary English literature, the most popular of which is perhaps the trilogy of novels The Lord of the Rings by the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien. In 1983 he was awarded the Attila József Prize. In 1988 hewas elected President of the Association of Hungarian Writers and the honorary president of the Hungarian PEN Club in 1994 and of the Hungarian Tolkien Society in 2002.
On the commemorative stamp, there is a portrait of Árpád Göncz taken in 2000 by Péter Korniss, and the commemorative first day cover features one taken in 1990 by Péter E. Várkonyi. Árpád Göncz’s signature is used for the special postmark.
